Tag: Information

Flooftrigue

Flooftrigue (floofinition) – Secret or underhanded floofinations done by animals. Origins: 1676, France.

In Use: “Nobody could understand how the kittens were escaping their safe room every day until a camera was installed and caught the flooftrigue as the Retriever sniffed the door and then then opened it, letting the kittens loose before nosing the door closed.”

Recent Use: “People in Texas were intrigued by Cleo the cat burglar and the flooftrigue around his stealing antics that were caught on camera.”

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Lootching

Lootching (floofinition) – Combined stretching and looking at something by an animal who has been sleeping. Origins: Internet, US, 2023

In Use: “Walking into the bedroom, he awoke his floof, who responded with some intense lootching before curling into another sleeping position and resuming his nap.”

In Use: “The dogs and cats conducted synchronized lootching when Carrie walked in, and then pause, watching to see if she offered food, before returning to their snoozing.”

Recent Use: “An ancient Floofverb states, ‘There’s no lootching among distrustful animals.'”

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2023’s Final Jigsaw

We enjoy jigsaw puzzles at our house and do a few a year. I do most of them as my wife does the edge, walks away for a while and then returns to help finish. We usually get them from the local library of things in Ashlandia. That was the case for this one. Unfortunately, as happened with two other puzzles this year, this one was missing pieces. The first one missing a piece this year, we didn’t know it was missing one until the puzzle was done. With the second episode, a note in the box noted that a piece was missing and showed where it was missing.

In this case, nothing was said about a missing piece, and it was more than one piece. In fact, six to nine pieces were missing, including multiple edge pieces from two sides. As we didn’t know, we spent a lot of time carefully going through pieces looking for those edges.

It’s a shame, though, because the thousand-piece puzzle was challenging and otherwise fun, and a beautiful scene. Several times while working it, I thought, I wouldn’t mind being there, sitting a table with a glass of wine.

When we take it back to the library, we’re going to point out how many pieces are missing. My wife says she’s going to suggest to them that it be removed from circulation.

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Coffee Powr

I’m a retired military veteran and over sixty-five years old. That combo means my health insurance is through a hybrid product that requires me to sign up for Medicare A & B when I turned 65. Mediacare provides primary coverage to me and my wife; TriCare for Life (TFL, officially known on the web as TriCare4Life) gives us secondary coverage. It’s not a bad deal. It isn’t free; my wife and I both pay for Part B.

What made my coffee taste more bitter than usual was a bill from my provider received this month. They said I owed them over a hundred dollars for lab work and that TFL hadn’t paid anything. Egged on by my other, that sent me into a tizzy of indignation. A website I found said, yep, TFL doesn’t pay for preventive lab work. This made no friggin’ sense and only urged me to greater outrage.

I logged into the various systems this week to find answers. Not finding satisfaction there, I was forced to *gag* call them and speak to people. I have nothing against people or talking but I dislike phones and bureaucracies. Girding myself with a mug of stout dark goodness, I called T4L. After providing evidence of who I am and waiting a few minutes, I was connected to Derek.

I explained it all to him and proved who I am to him. Derek began ferreting through the systems for more about my grievance. I logged into my provider portal and dug out more details. Shame on me, but only then did I realize that this bill was for services from May of 2022. That just seemed wild that I’m dealing with that over eighteen months later.

Derek looked into it and discovered that T4L didn’t pay it because Asante, who did the work, didn’t send an EOB for the Medicare part that was paid. “Have more coffee and call the provider,” Derek advised.

Thanking him for his assistance and wishing him a good day and Merry New Year, I did so. After providing evidence about who I am and a short wait, Karen heard my tale. “Interesting,” she said. “We show that T4L denied the claim.”

What?

She went on to tell me it’d been rejected three times and that’s why they were now billing me. “Let me contact the insurance section and confirm they sent the needed EOB,” she went on. “I’m going to email them now.” She typed away while I listened to keyboard clickety-clack. “There,” she said. “Now we’ll see what happens. Your bill is due next week but ignore that. If you get another bill or notice asking for payment, give us a call to check on the status, okay?”

Sure. I thanked Karen, wished her good day and Happy New Year, hung up and wrote up my notes. Now I wait, but I feel optimistic about the outcome. The whole thing only took one hour.

I couldn’t have done it without coffee, though.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: peckish

December 29, 2023. Today is Friday, and it’s a wet windy time in Ashlandia, where the New Year Eve celebration preparation is below average. 59 F degrees right now, 61 F has appeared on the offerings board as our high. It’s like winter has declared a moratorium on snow in our valley, and the mountains around us. While it’s nice for now, we need the snowbank to be replenished.

The cats are happy, though. I let them out and they settled on the covered porch, leisurely surveying their kingdom as the rain fell, yawning, washing, then drowsing. Tucker stayed out but Papi banged for re-entry to get some sugar from me and have a third breakfast.

No serious plans for NYE in our house. We looked for dancing and dining opportunities but nothing called the inner rocker. Seriously, the pickings were lean as a wheat crop in the Sahara. So, shrug, it’s a quiet evening planned for us. Neither of us seem overly upset over it.

The Neurons fed a Triumph song, “World of Fantasy” from 1983, into my morning mental music stream (Trademark fantasized). A convo with the significant O opened the portal for the song. We were talking politics and how some seem to live in such a fantasy world. I was later humming but didn’t quite recognize what it was. Later, in bed, the song came more deeply but I still couldn’t hook up with the title or band. Come morning, while downing coffee, The Neurons tipped that it was Triumph and “World of Fantasy”. As I remembered it, I thought how Triumph, a Canadian group, sometimes reminded me of Rush, another Canadadian group.

Stay positive, be strong, test negative, and lean forward a better future. Coffee has been sucked up and is yielding positive results. Here’s the music for you. Cheers

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Flooftective

Flooftective (floofinition) – 1. An animal who enjoys investigating things and resolving mysteries. Origins: first noted in Europe in 1732.

In Use: “Tobias the cat and Josh the dog were both flooftectives, so any household activity drew the pair in to determine what was going on, whether any food was involved, and how they might benefit.

Recent Use: “Monica the dog became an Internet hero when she used her flooftective skills to find a hapless kitten and then encourage the poor flooflet to follow her home.

Monica the flooftective

2. Actions taken to keep or make animals safe. Origins: Public use was originally found in newspaper articles circa 1849.

In Use: “Learning of a cougar prowling the neighborhood, people took the flooftective measures of bringing in their pets and closing pet doors.”

Recent Use: “A newer development to add flooftective elements to a house is catios, often made by adding small cages or kennels to a patio which cats can access directly from the house.”

3. A person who undertakes solving a mystery which involves an animal. Origins: first use was in the early twenty-first century on the world wide web.

In Use: “Determining how dinosaurs died when fossils are found often require people to be flooftectives and examine the evidence for clues.”

Recent Use: “Coming home to find much of the house destroyed, Connie became a flooftective to learn which of the cats and dogs had turned over the plants, tore up pillows, and spread toilet paper in the bathroom and down the hall. All suspects presented innocent visages, so the task was challenging until some paw prints were found.”

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

Since retiring from the military in the 1990s, I’ve had health insurance through various Tricare programs, which replaced CHAMPUS. Most recently, my coverage was mandated to be Tricare for Life. It worked well. Of course, to continue using TFL, I was required to sign up for and start paying for Medicare once I became 65 years of age, which happened two years ago. This is a vein of the product called ‘Tricare for Life Medicare’.

I was recently hit with a bill for lab work done earlier this year. The lab bill was $300 and I had to pay $108 of that.

That surprised me. Investigating my benefits, I found that Medicare paid part. I thought TFL would cover the rest, but no; Tricare for Life Medicare doesn’t cover preventative lab work, only such work for life-threatening issues.

After a life of being pushed to be proactive and take preventative measures to find and treat health conditions in early stages, it seems like an odd turn of coverage. Makes me re-think what they were thinking when they called the program ‘Tricare for Life’.

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Floofspeak

Floofspeak (floofinition) – An implanted device used by animals to speak to other species. Origins: first suspected by humans during witch trails in the American Colonies in the 1700s.

In Use: “Although ‘implanted’ is the term used, many floofocologists now believe that floofspeak is either a quantum matter or magic, as no implanted devices have ever been found.”

In Use: “Animals often sit mutely staring at humans as they attempt to use floofspeak to converse, but then will leave in exasperation, or resort to coarse noises to speak with the humans.”

Recent Use: “An Irish floofocologist, Kitty McAleer, claimed to have found significant revelations about floofspeak in a set of recovered documents collectively known as the The Floofy Codices. Although stored in a secure place, the documents disappeared before they could be made public, including digital photographs which were initially made. Ms McAleer cites the document’s disappearance as clear evidence of “animals’ unique, even supernatural skills to access places”, and believes her house pet, a Tom named Phelan, provided inside intelligence which aided the thieves.”

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FAC

FAC: Floof Action Committee (floofinition) – 1. A consortium of animals joining together to achieve change or direct policy.

In Use: “The household pets knew where the treats were stored and egged on by the dog, formed a FAC to get to them. The cat was most instrumental, jumping onto the kitchen counter and then to the refrigerator’s top to knock the packets to the floor, but the dogs were the ones who tore them open for all to enjoy.”

Recent Use: “On a cold winter night, a dog found a small niche of shelter where she could stay warm. Soon another dog, and then a cat joined him, sharing their warmth and shelter, and creating a de facto survival FAC.”

2. A group of humans dedicated to helping and, or, saving animals, and ensuring their health and welfare are attended to.

In Use: “Many communities have volunteers which form a FAC to reduce the feral populations with spay-neuter-release programs, and have parallel programs to find the young and have them fostered, domesticated, and adopted.

Recent Use: “With wars and military actions reducing places to terrifying scenes of burned-out rubble, global FACs have formed to find and save the innocent animals, giving them food and medical treatment, and shipping them out to safe places as needed and able.”

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Floofuary

Floofuary (floofinition) – A period when animals’ boredom rises and they sleep more, usually in response to colder weather and shorter periods of daylight.

In Use: “In the northern hemisphere, Floofuary tends to kick in a few weeks before the year’s end as cats and dogs decide to quit venturing outside to test the temperature and just curl up and sleep, only rising to eat.”

In Use: “Bucking trends, some thick-furred animals are thrilled when Floofuary arrives, racing around through snow with utter abandonment and pure joy, dismissive of ‘cold’ weather.”

Recent Use: “Facebook posts become rich with videos of animals encountering snow for the first time when Floofuary strikes, amusing us all as animals chase flakes or become snow covered.”

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